Trinity eliminates electives

Several high school courses for the 2013-14 academic year were eliminated by the Trinity Area School Board, which held a reconvened meeting Monday.

Among those courses retained were Introduction to Family and Consumer Science as a one-year elective for freshmen, and one semester of Advanced Public Speaking.

Superintendent Paul Kasunich said earlier this year that the cuts were recommended due to low enrollment or to reduce course redundancies.

Those eliminated were academic courses in English, science and social studies. The honors courses and college preparatory courses will remain.

The one-semester class of Personal Finance was removed. Although Tamara Salvatori, who chairs the education committee, said they had recommended it be kept because the coursework is not taught in economics, Kasunich said he had spoken with the economics department chair and was assured it could be included in the curriculum.

Also eliminated was the one-semester Family Cooking and Nutrition. Kasunich said there is a two-week unit in the health classes that could be expanded to include the studies.

Directors also voted to remove French I, II, III and IV from the curriculum. There are 27 students in the freshmen class of French I.

Board member Penny Caleffe said students will now have to select another language as they are required to have two years of a language to enter college.

“We offered French I this year and we shouldn’t have,” she said.

But high school principal Donald Snoke said students were given the option of continuing French II through an online program.